Here’s a recap of the day so far
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Donald Trump said he has “no regrets at all” about endorsing Ken Paxton in the Senate race in Texas, after the Republican nominee reportedly complained about the impact of the Iran war and high gas prices on his precarious performance. According to an audio recording obtained by Axios, Paxton can be heard responding to questions about the main issues affecting his race at a fundraiser in Washington DC. “It’s not tariffs,” he said. “It’s the war, it’s gas prices, it’s diesel.” A number of polls have Paxton, also the Texas attorney general, trailing his Democratic rival, James Talarico, as Republican groups spend tens of millions of dollars to support his election bid.
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Meanwhile, the president is on his way to San Antonio, Texas, where he’s set to hold another campaign rally to drum up support for Paxton. This is Trump’s second visit to Texas in the past week. He’s set to speak at 7pm ET.
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Trump also said today that he would “immediately” fire his political advisers Chris LaCivita and James Blair “if there’s a conflict,” following a New York Times report that the two political operatives visited the Russian-aligned Bosnian territory of Republika Srpska. In a Truth Social post, Trump noted that the two operatives “do not work for me, other than as outside consultants”, adding they are allowed to do “work for others, just like all consultant”. LaCivita was formerly a senior adviser on the president’s 2024 campaign, and Blair was formerly a White House adviser who took a temporary leave of absence to head up Maga Inc – the Trump-aliged Super Pac.
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Mike Rogers – the Republican nominee for the open US Senate seat in Michigan – is trying to show a bit of daylight between his platform and the Trump administration’s trade war with the state’s neighbor, Canada. “Here in Michigan, we know that Canada is not our enemy,” Rogers, a former congressman, says while perched at a sports bar drinking a Canadian beer. “We need to end this tariff war – now.” In the Oval Office, Trump, said he viewed the ad “as though [Rogers] wanted Canada to make a deal”, before launching into a familiar rant about how the country has been “ripping off” the US for “many, many years”.
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Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) investigated hundreds of non-profit groups that helped people register to vote, according to internal government documents obtained by legal non-profit Democracy Forward. Dozens of groups, from across the country, were investigated. Some of these non-profits partner with larger groups, like Voto Latino – which focuses on voter registration and get-out-the-vote efforts for Hispanic and Latino citizens.
Key events
Trump showers praise on ‘fantastic’ Ken Paxton, the Texas Senate candidate caught on audio calling Trump a drag on his campaign
After as brief introduction from Roger Clemens, the disgraced former baseball star accused in a high-profile report of using performance-enhancing drugs, Donald Trump has taken the stage at a midterm campaign rally for Republicans at the Freeman Coliseum in San Antonio, Texas.
The president began by attacking the Texas Democrat James Talarico, using the nickname “Talafreako”, which the candidate has put on campaign merchandise.
Trump then praised Republican Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general who is running for US Senate against Talarico, as “probably the greatest attorney general in the history of the state of Texas. He is tough. And he was with us all the way. And so I just want to thank him. He’s a fantastic – he’s a fantastic man and what a job he’s done.”
Trump made no mention of the fact that Paxton was recently caught on audio revealing that he considers Trump’s unpopular war on Iran, and the resulting high gas prices, a drag on his campaign.
Trump lashes out at ‘ungrateful’ Texas Democrat he pardoned for not becoming a Republican
We are now waiting for Donald Trump to arrive at a Republican campaign rally at Freeman Coliseum in San Antonio, Texas, where the embattled Senate candidate Ken Paxton finished speaking 30 minutes ago.
Moments before Air Force One touched down at Kelly Field in San Antonio, Trump fired off a lengthy diatribe attacking Texas congressman Henry Cuellar, a Democrat he pardoned last year, attacking him as “ungrateful” for not becoming a Republican.
I did the pardons, and made no deal, where a crooked politician would have, but I thought there would be a good chance that Cuellar, who was persecuted by Democrats because they didn’t like him, would have routinely gone over to the Republican Party — The people that saved him from years in prison. Shockingly, Cuellar announced, only a few days later, that he is going to remain a Dumocrat. Many considered this to be a tremendous act of disloyalty, and certainly, showed him to be an extremely ungrateful person … Henry Cuellar is a LOSER who, right now, should be serving a longterm jail sentence with his wife in a top level penitentiary.
Federal lawsuit from Democrats says eight more pro-Trump ads are ready to air, including attacks on Biden and Obama
The federal lawsuit Democrats filed on Wednesday to stop the Trump administration from using millions of taxpayer dollars to air a series of pro-Trump ads includes details of another eight ads that have already been prepared for broadcast – all of which celebrate Donald Trump, and appear to violate a federal ban on the use of public money for “self-aggrandizement” or “purely partisan” messaging from the government.
The Democratic National Committee says in the suit that “there are at least 13 campaign-style political ads in a Dropbox account controlled by LMD Agency Inc, the government contractor bringing the ads to air”. Each ad in the Dropbox account includes on-screen text saying that the ad celebrating Trump in the run-up to midterm elections his party is in danger of losing was “Paid for by the U.S. Government”.
In addition to the five pro-Trump already broadcast since last month, the suit describes another four in detail:
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An ad titled “UFC 250”, which celebrates the fights staged at the White House on Trump’s birthday in June.
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An ad titled “King of the Jungle”, which shows a lion hunting in the wild and disparages Trump’s political enemies, including former president Barack Obama and other Democrats. In February, Trump shared a racist video on social media that portrayed him as a lion and Obama and his wife, Michelle, as apes.
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An ad titled “Resilience”, which includes images of Trump announcing his candidacy for the presidency in 2015; his mugshot from Fulton county, Georgia, in 2023, when he was charged with racketeering and a conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the state; video of the assassination attempt on him during the 2024 election campaign.
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An ad titled “God Made Trump”, a fan-created hymn of praise to Trump that was shown during the Republican midterm convention.
According to CNN, which gained access to the Dropbox last week, another ad in the series features attacks on Joe Biden, including the mocking image of the former president as an autopen installed by Trump on an exterior wall of the White House.
Democrats sue Trump administration, asking judge to declare Trump ads paid for with taxpayer dollars illegal propaganda
The Democratic National Committee sued the Trump administration in federal court on Wednesday, asking a judge in Washington to stop the president from using taxpayer funds to air a series of ads promoting himself, arguing that the ads are illegal government-sponsored propaganda.
The ads promoting Donald Trump, including one recycled from his 2024 presidential campaign, have cost taxpayers more than $12m so far, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact.
After a bipartisan backlash to the use of public money to promote the president during the final month of the midterm campaign season, the president claimed on Monday that he would direct the Maga Inc Super PAC he controls to pay for the ads instead. The next day, however, when the government unveiled a fifth ad in the series, celebrating the military intervention in Venezuela ordered by Trump, that new ad was also paid for by the public.
The DNC complaint, filed in the US district court for the District of Columbia, alleges that the ads violate federal law, including a ban on congressionally appropriated money being used for “publicity or propaganda”.
The complaint gets right to the point in its opening lines:
The Trump administration is using taxpayer dollars to air political advertisements, a blatant violation of the statutory ban on the use of appropriations for ‘publicity or propaganda purposes’. President Trump personally directed this illegal activity. The White House office crafted the partisan campaign. The office of management and budget shifted $20m to pay for it. And US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has carried it out. These unlawful actions are ultra vires and violate the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).
The suit also notes, as the Guardian reported last month, that the first ad in the series features an image of Fifa’s president, Gianni Infantino, awarding Trump the so-called ‘Fifa peace prize,’ to support its case that the ads all violate a prohibition on the use of taxpayer funds for “self-aggrandizement”.
The text of the complaint also references new polling from Reuters/Ipsos released on Tuesday which found that an overwhelming majority of Americans, 86%, called it inappropriate to use taxpayer funds for TV ads featuring the president around an election. The survey reported that 80% of Republicans called the ads inappropriate, with only 17% of the president’s party approving of them.
According to the suit, the ads have been broadcast on ABC, NBC, MS Now, CBS, CNN, Fox News and Newsmax and appeared during a variety of programs, including popular NFL and college football games, and news and entertainment shows on which the president has been criticized, including Meet the Press, Jimmy Kimmel Live! and Saturday Night Live.
Ken Martin, the DNC chair, said in a statement that Trump is misusing taxpayer dollars in “a last-ditch attempt to save Republicans in November”.
“Americans deserve better than to have their hard-earned tax dollars used for Trump’s illegal schemes,” he added.
Helena Smith
Reporting from Athens
In a speech heavy on symbolism and historic reference, Marco Rubio urged Europe from the rugged hill where democracy was first experienced in Athens to remain faithful to the traditions that have kept the west alive.
With the Acropolis behind him, illuminated by the last light of day, the US secretary of state called for a renewal of the western spirit.
“Today, we find ourselves at a crossroads. The next decade will write the story of the next century,” he said before a crowd of politicians and diplomats gathered at the ancient Pnyx hill, where popular assemblies first met. “The course we take will determine whether the west maintains its place at the head of the world, or resigns itself to a future of atrophy, and servitude, and decline. We will either choose to act now or lose the choice to act at all.”
In echoes of the blistering speech JD Vance gave at the Munich security conference last year, Rubio reminded his audience that the Trump administration had decided to “choose the unapologetic pursuit of national power”.
He added: “It has become fashionable today to believe that enlightened foreign policy means prioritizing the ‘global community’ over one’s own people. And I think here, too, we have much more to learn from the men of ancient Greece. They knew that there was nothing selfish or wrong about loyalty to your nation, nor anything selfish or wrong about fighting to defend its interests above all else. Under President Trump, the United States has made its choice. We choose the unapologetic pursuit of national power.”
Greek security services pulled out “all the stops” to ensure that the speech could go ahead, the Guardian has learned. For the duration of the two-night stopover, Athens has been thrown into enforced lockdown amid draconian security measures, with rallies and large gatherings banned.
Rubio, widely seen as a leading contender in the Republican nomination to succeed Trump in 2028, insisted he be given the opportunity between leading the sixth round of US-Greece strategic dialogue – talks that saw several significant cooperation agreements signed – and meeting the Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, this evening.
Applause for the address was far from rousing, however, with leftwing opposition MPs and media going so far as to call it “provocative” and accusing the center-right government of pandering to the Trump administration.
Senator Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat, has slammed the Trump administration’s move to block the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) from observing the midterm elections.
This will mark the first time in more than 20 years that the group, the world’s largest regional security organization, would not be present to monitor the elections in the US.
“The Trump Administration’s failure to continue this practice is yet another step that risks undermining public trust in America’s safe and secure election system,” Shaheen said.
A reminder that monitors do not interfere with the voting process itself, but observe it.
“I was an official election monitor in the country of Georgia in 2012 and most recently in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2022, so I know first-hand the importance of showing up for allies and partners to improve the public’s confidence in election integrity,” said Shaheen, an outgoing senator from New Hampshire who is also the top Democrat on the foreign relations committe.
Russia and Belarus are the only other countries who have excluded OSCE observers in nationwide elections.
The move comes as Trump’s justice department has pledged to send 1,000 election monitors to polling sites across the country in November. In response, the NAACP filed a lawsuit to block the administration’s effort, noting that their presence could “interfere with the right of voters to participate in the election free from intimidation”.
Here’s a recap of the day so far
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Donald Trump said he has “no regrets at all” about endorsing Ken Paxton in the Senate race in Texas, after the Republican nominee reportedly complained about the impact of the Iran war and high gas prices on his precarious performance. According to an audio recording obtained by Axios, Paxton can be heard responding to questions about the main issues affecting his race at a fundraiser in Washington DC. “It’s not tariffs,” he said. “It’s the war, it’s gas prices, it’s diesel.” A number of polls have Paxton, also the Texas attorney general, trailing his Democratic rival, James Talarico, as Republican groups spend tens of millions of dollars to support his election bid.
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Meanwhile, the president is on his way to San Antonio, Texas, where he’s set to hold another campaign rally to drum up support for Paxton. This is Trump’s second visit to Texas in the past week. He’s set to speak at 7pm ET.
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Trump also said today that he would “immediately” fire his political advisers Chris LaCivita and James Blair “if there’s a conflict,” following a New York Times report that the two political operatives visited the Russian-aligned Bosnian territory of Republika Srpska. In a Truth Social post, Trump noted that the two operatives “do not work for me, other than as outside consultants”, adding they are allowed to do “work for others, just like all consultant”. LaCivita was formerly a senior adviser on the president’s 2024 campaign, and Blair was formerly a White House adviser who took a temporary leave of absence to head up Maga Inc – the Trump-aliged Super Pac.
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Mike Rogers – the Republican nominee for the open US Senate seat in Michigan – is trying to show a bit of daylight between his platform and the Trump administration’s trade war with the state’s neighbor, Canada. “Here in Michigan, we know that Canada is not our enemy,” Rogers, a former congressman, says while perched at a sports bar drinking a Canadian beer. “We need to end this tariff war – now.” In the Oval Office, Trump, said he viewed the ad “as though [Rogers] wanted Canada to make a deal”, before launching into a familiar rant about how the country has been “ripping off” the US for “many, many years”.
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Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) investigated hundreds of non-profit groups that helped people register to vote, according to internal government documents obtained by legal non-profit Democracy Forward. Dozens of groups, from across the country, were investigated. Some of these non-profits partner with larger groups, like Voto Latino – which focuses on voter registration and get-out-the-vote efforts for Hispanic and Latino citizens.
Trump again acknowledged the reporting that two of his top political advisers, Chris LaCivita and James Blair, spent time in the Balkans last week, in the Russian-aligned Bosnian territory of Republika Srpska.
The New York Times reported that the pair were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars through a DC-based law firm, retained by the territory’s government. Earlier, Trump said he would “terminate” the operatives “if there’s conflict”.
However, as he left the White House for Texas, the president appeared more unfazed: “They’re allowed to do this. They have a lot of clients in this. I’m a client of theirs. They have a consulting firm, as all people in Washington do. That’s pretty common.”
Hegseth welcomes USS Abraham Lincoln crew back to US after record-breaking deployment
Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, welcomed back the crew of the USS Abraham Lincoln back to the US in San Diego today.
A reminder, the aircraft carrier has been at sea for more than 300 days, after its deployment was extended in May, amid the ongoing Iran war.
“You responded from minute one, constant combat operations, which Iran never expected-the kind of fire and fury that you were able to bring off this flight deck, along with other incredible Americans,” Hegseth said. “The only reaction the American people and the American media should have is pride.”
However, time on the ship has been marked by controversy. According to Hung Cao, the acting US navy secretary, eight US navy personnel assigned to the Lincoln carrier strike group attempted suicide since the start of their lengthy assignment – the longest continuous period at sea without a port call.
On Wednesday, Hegseth repeated his frequent critique of the media, and accused some members of the press of turning the record-breaking deployment into “some sort of symbol of dysfunction, or a symbol of low morale or a symbol of a failed mission”.
Last week, Hegseth appeared to reference the mental health crisis on board while speaking to lower-ranking troops at the Marine Corps Base, insisting there are “disingenuous headlines about deployment lengths, patently false claims of low troop morale, or flat-out propaganda, as if it’s written by our adversaries”.
MS Now also reported in August on alarming allegations of mold in the ship’s showers and dwindling supplies of food and soap, among other basic necessities. At the time, Hegseth dismissed reports about deteriorating conditions on board as “completely misrepresented”.
My colleague, Anna Betts, has been speaking to families of crew members ahead of the Lincoln’s return. You can read her full report here:
In the Oval Office, Trump dismissed any concerns about Mike Rogers’ recent campaign ad, where the Republican nominee for US Senate in Michigan calls to “end this tariff war – now”.
The spot appears to be another instance of Rogers trying to create daylight between his bid and the administration’s policies. “Here in Michigan, we know that Canada is not our enemy,” he says in the ad.
Trump, however, said he “viewed it as though [Rogers] wanted Canada to make a deal”, before launching into a familiar rant about how the country has been “ripping off” the US for “many, many years”.
A reminder that trade talks broke down in August between the US and Canada – resulting in a flurry of reciprocal tariffs of up to 50% between the countries.
